


A Glimpse into a Different Life

by AugustStories



Series: Personal Writing Challenge October 2019 [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dad Dean, Domestic Dean Winchester, Episode: s06e01 Exile on Main St., F/M, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Sam got out of the Cage with his Soul, family life, the rest of the episode goes the same
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 03:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21029417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustStories/pseuds/AugustStories
Summary: Dean Winchester lived a different life now, where the only people he was patching up were little kids who scraped up their knees and the only monsters he fought were dustballs under a bed.And the only thing that remained from his old life was a layer of protection sigils he needed to lay down on the new house.





	A Glimpse into a Different Life

**Author's Note:**

> To support my friend with her inktober challenge, I made myself a writing challenge so she wouldn't be handling prompt works on a daily basis alone. I will be posting all works that aren't based on original writing where you guys wouldn't understand the context, this is day 14.

The sound of laughter drifted up from the street below, making him feel very alone in this new town. It was only normal, his family would only come up here on the weekend when his wife's vacation time started, until then he still had some stuff to finish up in their new place. The moving truck was coming on Friday afternoon, Lisa and the kids would stay with her friend until she drove them up here on Sunday.

Until then Dean Winchester had a beautiful little family home that lacked a considerable amount of furniture, next to the new big couch in the living room, the new computer desk in Ben's room and the kitchen, everything was quite empty. It didn't really help with the whole being alone issue, Dean hadn't spent a night alone in over two years now, at least someone had always been with him in the house, whether it be Lisa or Ben or his little princess.

Three more days he told himself as he walked away from the open window and back to the markers, the paintbrushes and the paint bucket. The house was done, move in ready they had already bought it from the inheritance Lisa had gotten in a surprise after her estranged father had passed away. A beautiful new home for their grown family. Dean only had to add some special touches still, the one remaining thing from his old life that he still carried on.

To the laughter of the children in this dead end street in the outskirts of suburban Kansas City, Dean grabbed his marker and resettled into drawing protection sigils around the ground floor, the upper floor was already done, as was the attic and the basement. During the little renovation work he had done last months already, some touch up to make the colors and overall style of the house more modern and to their tastes, Dean had made sure to have all entrance points lined with salt in the paint.

When it came to the safety of his family, he wasn't going to take chances.

None.

Which was why he reached for his phone when it felt like he had done everything on his mental list, he just wanted some reassurement that he really hadn't forgotten anything. Making sure he wasn't showing any stains on his clothes, Dean flopped himself down on the couch and hit speed dial.

"If it isn't the houseman," Bobby greeted him with a gruff laugh and Dean scowled, even though it was very much the truth. Maybe when Katie was older he would go looking for a mechanic again, or go for evening school and finally finish a high school degree but until then he had a princess to raise and a pre-teen to drive around six hours a day. "Getting lonely in empty walls?"

"You have no idea," he admitted and looked around the big room surrounding him, he could picture it with furniture in his head but the emptiness was still overwhelming. "Counting down the hours to be honest, and it's still days away. You got a moment, Bobby, or am I interrupting anything?"

"Nah, you're good. What's up?" Dean had the ever lasting suspicion that Bobby could be knee deep in some ghoul nest and would still pretend he wasn't busy because Dean had called for help or advice on something. They didn't talk about hunting or cases anymore, Dean called for different kind of advice now, the kind where your eleven year old was throwing a temper tantrum over something that happened at school and you were apparently expected to grab the reasons from his head rather than actually hearing about it.

"I think I just got done with the protection sigils, kinda wondering if I might have forgotten anything?" Dean asked his questions and then frowned when among all the childish laughter filtering in he could also hear some crying. He got up and walked over the window to Bobby's hum of thinking. 

"I think I still have that list somewhere around here that I emailed you a while ago, let me see," Bobby told him just as Dean reached the window that overlooked the front lawn and the street. He saw most of the children still playing their games, riding their bikes on the quiet street or coloring the sidewalk with chalk, only one little girl was sitting on the sidewalk in front of his house, holding her bleeding knee, her scooter twisted around a little next to her.

Smiling a little in sympathy, Dean turned around again and walked over to his backpack in the kitchen, tugging his phone between shoulder and ear he searched around until he found the Disney princess toiletries bag he had forgotten to set back into the stroller – something Lisa had already thanked him for when she had been searching for the extra pacifier. He grabbed the bag and regrabbed his phone and then made his way outside at the same time as Bobby was talking again.

"I assume you got the usual Enochian stuff down," he started and Dean agreed, walking past Baby in the driveway to get to the crying pre-schooler. Up closer he recognized her as the youngest of their left side neighbours and she recognized him, too, no fear slipped into blue eyes as he crouched down by her side. Dean tugged his phone back between shoulder and ear so he could have both hands free.

"Can I see?" He asked quietly while Bobby listed down other charms and protection measures in his left ear, none of which he had missed. David's youngest took her hands back and Dean made a playful grimace at the scratch which had the little scooter victim nod in agreement. He got some wet wipes of the bag and cleaned up her knee, making sure to prod around gently to ensure himself that she hadn't injured herself more beyond some superficial scratches.

"You didn't forget the devil's trap, right? Surely you wouldn't miss out on the absolute basics, Dean," Bobby was saying as Dean showed some Disney Princess bandaids to a five year old who picked Belle and Snow White.

"Of course I didn't forget that," Dean pointed out and unpacked bandaids to finish up the patch up job, he took extra care to smooth out the bandaids so the print would be perfectly situated and visible. "One sec, Bobby. See, all done, now let's get you up." He swung her up with hands under her arms and set her on her feet again. He grabbed the scooter as well and pulled it right again, made sure it was still whole and functional before setting it down for her on the sidewalk. "Not too wild, don't want to hurt that pretty face," he told her and bopped her nose before sending her on her way. "Alright, I'm back."

"Then I believe you'll be all set but as I was already expecting this call, I might have sent some back-up out who can take a more in depth look at your new place." Bobby gave himself a chuckle and Dean frowned in confusion as he took his phone into his hand again, grabbing the bag with the other before turning to walk back inside. "And if traffic wasn't too much of a bitch, he should be there any moment now actually."

"What?" Dean let his dumbfounded blank mind show but then froze and glanced back down to the street as a car carefully drove past the quickly parting sea of kids. A familiar car. "Well, I'll be damned." He gestured at the space behind Baby and then stepped to the side, looking probably entirely ridiculous with the Princess bag held in one hand. "Thanks, Bobby, means a lot. I'll call you when the place it set up. We might come up while Lisa still has vacation days left up."

"Can't wait, Dean, take care."

Dean closed the call and slipped his phone into the pocket of his jeans as the blue car stopped and a face he hadn't seen in a while cut the engine. His brother stepped out and got a hiss in greeting. "That's a nice looking eye, bitch."

"That's a nice looking bag, jerk," Sam hit right back at him and approached him, Dean measured up his steps but he moved fine so aside from his messed up eyebrow he was good then.

"Well, the kind of people I patch up these days are more into Princesses than Wodka straight," Dean deadpanned and then hugged his brother for a moment, Sam had clearly dressed himself up to blend into suburban Missouri. "You want Arielle or Snow White for that cut?"

"It's fine," Sam waved it off, they didn't talk about hunting unless Dean started it, "you wanna show me the place?" Dean nodded and smiled, turning so he could get back inside.

"Mister Winchester!"

Stopping once again, Dean looked back towards the street where his neighbour's twins had stopped with their bikes.

"Hey, guys, saw your baseball game yesterday, you did awesome," Dean called over to them and got two beaming grins in response. 

"When is Ben coming?" The more sandy haired twin wanted to know with eager eyes, they were only a year younger than Ben and Dean was glad that during their short visits in the past few months Ben had already made friends here.

"The weekend boys, gotta hold out a little longer." He answered them and then waved when they scurried off again, Sam sent him a look as they kept on walking then. 

\--

"So, what brings you up here? Can't imagine you were so bored that Bobby's proposal of paying me a visit was grasped with eager hands." Dean noted later after Sam had checked out the house and deemed it completely protected after adding some small touches of his own with things Dean hadn't know previously. Now they were sitting on that lonely family couch.

"Actually, I wanted to see you," Sam told him and shifted, clearly hiding something and not knowing how to get it out, Dean didn't need the knowledge of raising a pre-teen now to get that. "There, uhm, have been some developments recently. I'm not... hunting alone anymore."

"You're not expecting me to be mad about that, are you?" Dean wanted to know and watched his little brother's face carefully. "I'm gonna be relieved if you're not going out there alone anymore."

"I was never alone, you know," Sam argued, "I could always call for back-up and Cas was never out of reach either." Sam reminded him of their guardian angel who mostly kept himself to running Heaven these days, only sometimes he came down to pay them a visit or when Sam needed help and prayed.

Dean had last seen Cas two days after his daughter had been born when his friend had come down to meet her.

"So what changed that you got yourself a hunting buddy now? You found someone?" Dean asked in that tone that had Ben running for the hills still. Sam though turned bright red and Dean smirked, "you did. What's her name? How did you two meet?"

"You actually know him." Sam blurted out rather quickly and Dean blinked at him, all teasing dying on his tongue at the sight of his brother's nervousness. "It's Gabriel."

"What?"

"The short story is that he apparently didn't die back then but kinda did another disappearing act. Only he fucked up and got himself kidnapped by a Prince of Hell." Sam rattled it down and Dean felt like he got whiplash, "I, uhm, had some tough cases a while back. I didn't venture into hell but I got some leads that pointed to confusing ongoings down in the pits. Demons were going on about three caged Archangels and last time I checked I could still count. I called Bobby and we asked Cas for help. The angels got him out, killed the Prince but Gabe didn't want Heaven."

"And the two of you? How did that start?" Dean carefully wanted to know but Sam got that small smile, that one that showed his heart really was in it.

"Two months ago, maybe? He needed some time to recover," Sam explained to him and shifted a little. "Before you ask, he didn't come along because he wanted me to tell you first. I also didn't think this was something I should tell you over the phone."

"No, I really appreciate the face to face there. You know what," Dean said as a sudden idea struck him, "you should stick around for a few days. If you can, ask Gabriel to come along. I could use some extra hands for Friday, moving truck is only dropping stuff off, they're not helping with the rest. And then once Lisa and the kids are here, we can throw on the grill, have a good nice family barbecue to bless the new house."

"Sure," Sam agreed with a happy grin, shoulders loosing the tension, Dean didn't want to question why his brother would have been nervous about coming out to him.

\--

Sam didn't tell his brother about the horror that Gabriel had truly faced in the years he had spent in captivity. Just like he hadn't told his brother over Raphael's attempt to jumpstart another Apocalypse until Cas and a fraction of Heaven took over and imprisoned Raphael within Heaven. He didn't tell him about the Hell seals and the failed attempt at closing the doors of Hell that had nearly cost him his life if it hadn't been for Cas.

He didn't tell Dean about the big things, the worrying things.

When Dean brought up the topic of hunting, Sam stuck to the easy stories, the vampires, the werewolves, the salt-and-burns.

Dean had chosen to get out and Sam respected that, wanted only the best for him.

\--

  
A few days later, Dean was waiting impatiently in front of his now fully furnished, fully decorated new home, awaiting the imminent arrival of his family while Sam and Gabriel hovered in the background.

Lisa was perfectly on time when she parked her car at the curb at around three in the afternoon and Ben came flying out the second she had cut the engine. Dean highfived his son who looked like he wanted nothing more than to not see a car again so soon, especially when he spotted the guests behind Dean. "Sam!" He called out and dashed over to him, greeting the uncle he hadn't seen in a while, Dean didn't even watch the reunion, instead he walked forward and opened the driver's door.

"Welcome to your new home, Misses Winchester," he drawled and Lisa rolled her eyes but nevertheless leaned in for a kiss, they hadn't seen each other in a week after all. "Everything run smooth?" He wanted to know and didn't hide his glancing over her shoulder towards the back seats.

"Of course it did, Ben had his Gameboy thingie and little snoring queen is your kid, would probably live in a car if she could." Lisa deadpanned and rolled her shoulders, "who is that next to your brother?"

"His boyfriend."

"Ohh," Lisa cooed in surprise and then Dean was forgotten in order to greet the new face, he had no doubt she would get along swimmingly with Gabriel. His mission continued as he set the driver's seat forwards and reached inside to grab grabby hands and kicking feet. "I know, I know," he reasoned for some patience, "lemme get you loose first. Jesus, with the temper." He unsnatched the seatbelt and then pulled the precious cargo from the back. "Hello, my princess!"

And the one year old with the green eyes blew him a smacking kiss.

Dean Winchester was so happy.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone would ever think about drawing Dean Winchester with a Disney Princess toiletries bag, you'd have my eternal gratitude and one (Non-kinky-stuff) Oneshot of your choosing would be written for you.


End file.
